It's your average loose passive 1/2 table. This casino has a $500 cap, so stack distribution varies between $80 shortstackers and players with $500+. Hero has $350 and is in the SB with T8. BTN covers. There are 4 limpers, including BTN, and Hero completes. BB checks.

Flop ($12). 972

Checks to UTG, who is a tightish scared-money player with $100. He bets $10, and gets one caller in MP. BTN, a relatively loose-passive player who typically plays 2/5 and has shown the ability to bluff (albeit not often), makes the call. We make the call.

Turn ($52) T

Hero leads out $35. UTG folds, MP folds, BTN calls.

I was planning to donk turn if I made my straight, as UTG is scared money and will check turn a lot, and I'm not sure that either of the other two players will semi-bluff their flush draws or bet a 9 for value on, e.g. a J turn. Making TP here is almost as good as making the straight, as I think people will call with all of their flush draws and worse pairs that now have straight draws. I think if BTN has the straight or 2pair+ he would almost always raise the turn.

River ($122) A

Hero ???

This is an interesting spot I encountered over the weekend, in which I think the optimal play is non-obvious. If you bet, why and how much? If you check, what will you do if BTN bets?

I made what I consider to be the second-best play, and the best play didn't occur to me until afterward. If there is interest I'll post results later, along with what I consider to be the best play and my justification for it.

If he will bluff, I like a check call. We have showdown value if he checks, and if we bet I do not think he is folding anything the beats us or calling with worse.

without better read than loose passive on V. I could see c/c OR b/f here. Really need a better read on V. I would lean toward c/c.

If you the villain is capable of bluff raising its a check call. Otherwise I bet / fold about 50.

B/f is almost impossible to get value from. What's he supposed to call with? Seems like an obvious c/c or c/f depending on his size/reads/whatever else you have to go on.

Interesting spot.

I think check/call most bets is okay.

I might prefer a kinda weird river line here though. We could blocker bet 25 with the intent of calling. If we think he would just flat with ax and may bluff a missed draw I think the blocker bet might entice him more than checking.

after thinking more on this I think a c/c up to $80 is the right way to go. Anything more is probably a straight value bet by V.

C/C. Reasonable bet. Well played.

However, I think we missed a spot on flop. Calling is +EV. However vs a scared short stacker, and competent button. I would raise big on flop. Probably to $45-50. Not a fan generally of raising draws at 1/2 (as generally we can draw to them at excellent price). But this just seems like a great spot.
Button would still be getting decent odds at a flush draw. However if he has a flush draw he most likely has flush draw and straight draw combo. That he himself would have raised vs $100 scared money stack. Even with Ad-Xd. I would assume he is raising IP vs scared money. Therefore it is unlikely he has a flush draw (which our equity is good against anyhow).

So putting him on 1 pair type hands mostly. Our raise here wins pot outright a huge percentage of the time. Leaving us the nut straight draw and 1 over when called.

Normally, I would agree that check/raising flop would be great. However, the reason I don't like it in this spot is BTN. He is passive and would not have raised a draw of any sort OTF, even a strong combo draw. On the other hand, he has lots of TP type hands in his range. If I raise flop, UTG and MP most likely fold and BTN can call with a wide range that includes lots of draws and pairs.

So on brick turns, I am OOP trying to decide whether to bloat the pot against a range of hands that aren't folding, but if I give up on my bluff, he could check back and win with something like K high would have folded if we'd kept up our aggression through the river. So I'm playing guessing games from OOP in a big pot.

Against this player, I think check/raising would be better on brick turns than on the flop.

If he isn't raising A10s+ pre. And not raising strong combo draws. Then he isn't polarized like I thought. So I would flat pre also.

Even passive 2/5 players generally have some aggression on button. But go with your read.

Grunch.

Definitely check the river. Probably c/c, as there are a bunch of draws that bricked and this looks like a "scare card" that our 2/5 playing semi-decent player may try to use as a bluff. He shouldn't have many combos of Ax in his range except possibly something like A9 or Axdd, both of which he could have reasonably played differently up until this point. Not sure how I feel about the turn lead, although I guess I don't hate it.

I agree with those who recommend checking. I don't think we can be realistically called by a hand like J9 if we bet this river. I was leaning toward a c/c but I ended up c/folding after he bet $65 because some of his table talk convinced me that he had Ax

After thinking about the spot later, I'm now convinced the optimal play is to check/shove. We could very reasonably play a straight in this way; I'm pretty sure our range for donking turn is straights, two pair, and 8x hands we have turned into bluffs (most of these will be pair + straight draws). On the other hand, villain's range includes a fair amount of busted diamond draws and a value range capped at AT. I think he will fold A LOT of his range to a shove.

Oh well. Missed opportunities. What do you guys think of shoving in this spot?

I don't like it. especially on river. i don't think you're getting called by worse hands enough to make this good. If he has shown he can bluff, (like you say) and he only makes a 1/2 pot bet, this is an easy call for me. It's the perfect bluff card against you. Yes, he could have Axdd, but his range is obviously MUCH wider than that. I would expect a true value bet to be in the $80-$95 range. And if he does have an ace here, take a mental note on how big the kicker was and if he was also chasing the flush.

Sorry, I meant check/shoving, not shoving. And to be clear, it would be as a bluff, not for value.

Why don't you just check call?

I think you need to work on figuring out the range of a loose-passive player. I don't think his value range is capped at AT. When you lead the turn, some LPs will just call with two pair or a set, fearing a straight (or a better two pair, if they have two pair worse than top two).

The ace is a scare card. Many LPs sometimes check behind with two pair on a river ace if they don't have aces up. (Strangely enough, if he had the nut flush draw, he might be more likely to bet. If he had two pair, he'll be worried that the ace killed him, but if he had ace-high, he'll be happy that the ace improved his hand.) I don't think check-shove makes sense unless you think he can bet-fold a hand like T7.

Even though they check hands they should bet, that doesn't mean they fold too much. If you make a sufficiently small enough bet, you can get looked up by 9x or 7x hands if you can convince them you are bluffing with a busted flush draw.

AsianNit, are you advocating bet/fold on the river? You make a salient point, but your claim that he is more likely to bet a naked A than two pair on the river makes check/shoving even better in my mind.

I think check/call is the second best line given our reads, even though I ended up check/folding here (this was due to some table talk after he bet that convinced me he very likely had an A).

Check/shoving seems better to me because his range is basically capped at two pair, and even that he should have pretty rarely. If he has an A, he should have a hard time calling a shove.

I'm advocating bet/fold if you think he will try to bluff catch against a busted flush draw. I'd go with c/c against a player who will often bluff a busted draw on a river ace.

I don't think his range is capped at two pair so, having looked at the stack sizes more closely, I think c/r all-in is probably a bit excessive and a smaller raise would probably accomplish the same thing.